


Applied Chaos Theory

by dearzoemurphy



Series: Queer Studies in an Alternate Timeline [6]
Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:54:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29112642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearzoemurphy/pseuds/dearzoemurphy
Summary: Rachel and Annie go on a date, the study group uncovers a secret, and Abed finds Rachel's celebrity lookalike.
Relationships: Abed Nadir & Rachel (Community), Annie Edison/Rachel (Community), Britta Perry/Jeff Winger (mentioned)
Series: Queer Studies in an Alternate Timeline [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1896352
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Applied Chaos Theory

“So…what’s been going on with you? It feels like it’s been a while since we’ve gotten a moment alone,” Rachel said.

Her and Annie were currently sitting at a table right outside a coffee shop close to campus, Rachel sipping on a mocha frappuccino and Annie nursing a cold brew as they observed the people walking by.

“Honestly, outside of school and committee meetings? Not much,” Annie replied.

Rachel nodded. “Same here, just with school and work. If I’d known that being a TA was this hard…I don’t know if I ever would have applied.”

“Aw, I’m sure you’re great at it, though!”

“Thanks, Annie,” Rachel said, a small smile tugging up the corners of her mouth, “It’s a great position, and I really like the professor that I’m working for. She was my first English teacher at Greendale, so it’s been really fun to help teach a class that I know so well. It’s just…a bit of a bummer that I’m spending so much time teaching and tutoring and grading papers now.”

“Well, it’s only for a few months, right? And then we’ll have the whole summer to spend together!” Annie said.

“Yeah, but that’s still a few months where I _can’t_ spend much time with you.”

Annie nodded, her gaze drifting down to the table as Rachel reached across it to take one of her hands.

“It just sucks that we’ve only been dating for two months and the honeymoon period is already over, you know?” Rachel said, her thumb drifting across the back of Annie’s hand.

“It’s only over when we say it’s over,” Annie said, digging her heels into the ground and looking back up at Rachel. She squeezed her girlfriend’s hand tightly as she scooted her chair in closer to the table. “We’re going to make this work, okay? We’ll find time where we can.”

“I never said that I didn’t think we could make it work. Really, I only hate that things are getting more difficult after this amount of time,” Rachel explained.

Annie gave her a weak smile. “Yeah, you’re right. It _does_ suck.”

Rachel squeezed her hand gently before letting it go, bringing her own back across the table towards her frappuccino. “I should be free this weekend, though. My students don’t have an essay due on Friday, so I won’t be stuck in grading hell all Saturday and Sunday.”

“Oh, really?! We should plan something nice, then,” Annie said, suddenly perking up.

“Of course! Maybe…an afternoon at the aquarium followed by a nice dinner at my place?”

“Did you have this planned out already?”

Rachel laughed. “Of course I did. What can I say, you’ve been keeping me on my toes! I know that I have to be prepared when it comes to you.”

Annie’s smile turned more than a little smug. “And I appreciate your preparedness.”

“You’d better,” Rachel said, leaning across the table to meet her girlfriend in the middle.

\---

“So, what’s everyone doing this weekend?” Shirley asked. The Save Greendale Committee was currently waiting on the rest of its members to trickle in; only Britta, Annie, and Abed were in their usual places around the table.

“I’m having a James Nguyen marathon. I’ve never watched all of his films chronologically back-to-back, so I’m going Julie and Jack, Replica, Birdemic: Shock and Terror, and finishing with Birdemic 2: The Resurrection. I might lose brain cells, but it will be fun,” Abed answered.

“Oh, that’s…nice?” Shirley said, her voice going up a little at the end, as if she weren’t quite sure what to think of Abed’s response. “What about you, An-nie?”

“Well, Rachel’s taking me to the aquarium,” she replied, unable to help the broad grin quickly spreading across her face, “and we’re going to make dinner together back at her apartment.”

“Aw, how sweet!” Shirley cooed.

“Crazy, I’m going on a date too!” Britta said. She winced as soon as the words left her mouth, giving the idea that she hadn’t meant to say them out loud.

“A date?! With who?” Annie exclaimed.

“Nothing. No one. It’s not a big deal, forget about it,” Britta insisted, waving her hands around as if it would take back what she had just said.

“What’s not a big deal?”

Each of them turned to see Jeff entering the study room, casually strolling over to take his seat.

“Oh, it’s-”

“Britta has a date,” Abed interjected.

Jeff’s eyes widened as he turned to stare at Britta. She gave him an apologetic look in return, and the two carried out a series of non-verbal communications before facing the others again.

“Interesting. I hope that your date goes well, Britta,” Jeff said, clearly trying too hard to remain neutral.

“Thank you, I hope it does, too.”

It only took Abed a moment of observing both of them to surmise what was going on. “The date is with Jeff, isn’t it?”

“What?!” Britta exclaimed, “Psh. No! I would never. Not in a million years. Date Jeff? Ha! No thanks.”

“Oh my god, you two are actually going on a date?!” Annie squealed, ignoring Britta’s denial and looking to Jeff instead.

He chuckled. “Yeah, so the cat’s out of the bag. We didn’t plan on telling you guys…” he paused to glare pointedly at Britta, “but yes, we have an actual date scheduled for Saturday.”

“Took you long enough…” Shirley muttered, shaking her head.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to tell them! Shirley asked what we were all doing this weekend, and Annie said that she was going on a date with Rachel, so it just sort of slipped out,” Britta protested.

Jeff dismissed her concerns with a wave of his hand. “It’s fine, I really don’t mind. It just felt like I should pretend that I did.”

Britta crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair, a triumphant smile taking up residence on her face. “Of course. After all, you have a cool, nihilistic persona to protect.”

“Precisely.”

“This will be yet another change to the formula,” Abed said, “With you two paired off and Annie happily with an out-of-group girlfriend, who knows where that leaves the rest of us.”

“Relax, Abed. It’s just one date, who knows where it will lead,” Jeff said, attempting to reassure him.

Abed nodded. “I know. I’m just trying to prepare for all of the possibilities.”

The group’s attention was quickly pulled away from the conversation once more when Chang ran into through the back door, Duncan trailing closely behind him.

“Hey, guys! Thanks for not getting started without us,” Chang said. He threw himself into his usual seat while Duncan lazily wandered over to his, clearly not too worried about wasting time.

“Of course! We had some personal matters to attend to, anyway,” Annie said, unsubtly winking in Jeff and Britta’s direction.

“Ugh, can we get to the meeting part now?” Britta said with a huff.

“I don’t know if you’ve ever been this eager to work on improving Greendale,” Jeff sarcastically remarked. Annie laughed at Britta’s resulting over-the-top eyeroll.

“Stuff it, Winger, or I’ll go a step further to ruin your reputation,” she threatened.

“What steps can you even take?”

“Well, I can start with the things you said to me in the stairwell!”

A suddenly panicked Jeff turned to face Annie. “Yeah, I think we should go ahead and get to the meeting part. Like, right now.”

Annie shook her head as she flipped open her massive binder. “ _Now_ you want to get to the meeting…I don’t know where this energy’s been all this time, but let’s keep it around!”

\---

After the meeting concluded, everyone swiftly exited the study room. Everyone except for Annie, who took an extra moment to pack up her binder, and Jeff, who was clearly purposefully lingering by the bookcase at the front of the room.

As she stood up to follow her friends outside, Jeff cleared his throat then took a deep breath.

“Hey, Annie?”

“Yes, Jeff?”

“I just wanted to say thanks.”

She tilted her head to one side in confusion. “For what?”

“For sending me and Britta to do the mold check last week. It gave me a chance to talk to her while everything was still fresh on my mind, before I could chicken out,” Jeff explained.

Annie smirked. “I’m just happy to hear that my matchmaking worked for once.”

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll let you know how the date goes or…something. God, this still feels so fucking high school.”

“Please do!” Annie said, pausing to laugh, “And that’s okay. ‘High school’ doesn’t always mean ‘bad’. Especially since for lots of us, this is kind of like a do-over.”

“Huh. I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

“Yeah. It’s how I like thinking of it, anyway.”

Jeff smiled at her, with a smile that seemed tinged with slivers of long-forgotten hope. “It’s a nice way of thinking of it.”

Annie gave him a similar smile in return. “I’m glad you approve.”

\---

“You didn’t tell me they had a touch tank _this_ big!” Annie squealed.

They’d been at the aquarium for about an hour, and had spent most of that sitting in front of the giant open ocean exhibit. Annie had been so transfixed by the schools of fish, the smaller sharks, and sea turtles that Rachel couldn’t bring herself to make them move on. It wasn’t like she minded; she enjoyed observing the sea creatures almost as much, and appreciated how pretty Annie was under the blue lighting of the exhibit.

Rachel laughed as they approached the large open-top tank filled with sea urchins, starfish, and other assorted creatures for aquarium guests to handle. “Oh, just wait until we get to the freshwater side and see the otters. _That_ will really blow you away.”

“I knew about the otters, but- oh, look! There’s one full of stingrays over here!” Annie exclaimed, taking her girlfriend by the hand and pulling her over to the second, larger touch tank. The creatures were swimming laps in their circular enclosure, their sides fluttering to move them along underneath a sea of hands eager to run themselves along the ray’s backs.

“You want to start over here?” Rachel asked.

“Yes. I’ve never touched a stingray before!”

The two of them were directed over to a hand washing station before they could approach the sides of the tank. Once they were in position, Rachel wasted no time in sticking her hand right in. A small, lone stingray swam up next to the pair, passing right under Rachel’s outstretched hand on its way through. She held two fingers out to touch its back, applying as little pressure as possible so as not to hurt it.

“Annie, what are you waiting for? C’mon, the next one’s almost here!” Rachel urged.

Timidly, Annie stuck her hand into the cool water, reaching two fingers out to touch the next stingray. This one was bigger, the underside of it’s flaps bright pink and its eyes seeming to roam around the tank. It came up to Rachel first, who let her hand glide across its back as she had before. It then swum over to Annie, who lightly poked it in the back before swiftly pulling her hand out of the tank.

“It’s so…smooth! And slimy,” she squeaked, shaking her hand as if to get rid of the sensation.

Rachel laughed. “Yeah, that’s kind of their thing. You don’t have to touch another one if you don’t want to.”

“No…I want to,” Annie affirmed, stepping back up to the tank and bravely sticking her whole hand back in. Yet another stingray swam by, first under Rachel’s hand, then under Annie’s. This time, she didn’t budge and let her fingers glide along it until they reached its tail.

“So…?”

“That was kind of cool, actually,” Annie said, looking down at the tank in awe. Another one came by that she readily reached out to.

“I know, right!”

“Like, these are creatures from the sea that we weren’t really meant to ever interact with like this. But here we are, basically petting them.”

Rachel smiled. “I knew I could count on you to have something semi-profound to say.” She leaned over to plant a quick peck on Annie’s cheek. However, before Annie could reciprocate, another stingray came flying by and pulled her attention back towards the tank.

“I can’t believe I’d never been here before…I used to love aquariums,” Annie murmured.

“Well, I’m glad I thought to bring you here, then.”

Annie looked over to her girlfriend and finally smiled back, moving to give her a quick kiss. “I’m glad you did, too.”

\---

“So, what are you planning for us to make?” Annie asked.

“I have everything we need to make chicken parm, and I already have the cutlets prepared, so all we have to do is dredge them in everything and fry them,” Rachel replied, kicking off her shoes by the front door and heading over to her fridge.

“That sounds great!” Annie went to join her girlfriend in her kitchen, stopping by the sink to wash her hands before helping Rachel to arrange the pans they needed to hold the ingredients that the chicken would be dipped in.

“You know…it’s really nice. Getting to do this with you,” Rachel said as she brought out flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs, “I don’t know, I just haven’t had a partner that I’ve felt this comfortable with in a long time.”

Annie smiled. “I feel the same way. I’ve never really had a partner at all before. Just…some casual boyfriends.”

Rachel slid a printed out recipe towards Annie, who quickly scanned the ingredients list to see how much flour and breadcrumbs to measure out. Her girlfriend set about cracking the eggs into one of the dishes while she went off in search of a measuring cup.

“Huh, kinda strange that your first real partner isn’t a boy…” Rachel playfully mused.

Annie laughed, nudging her girlfriend with the top of her head. “You’re right, it’s _very_ strange.”

With the chicken cutlets now out of their container, Rachel got down another plate to put them on when her and Annie were done dredging them in the three other ingredients. Annie dipped the first one into the flour, rolling it around to coat all sides of it before pulling it out and tapping off the excess.

“You ever wonder what would have happened if you’d never stumbled into my coat check?”

Annie stopped tending to the chicken to consider the question. “Sometimes. I don’t like to, though.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s what led to us getting to know each other! If we hadn’t met at that dance, I’m not sure if we ever would have gotten to know each other.”

Rachel smiled as she took the flour-coated chicken and dipped it into the whipped up eggs. “You’re right. That’s precisely why I think about it. It’s like…a perfect example of the butterfly effect.”

“That’s the one where one small thing can change a lot, right?”

“Yeah. The flap of a butterfly’s wings on one side of the world can cause a storm on the other.”

They continued dredging all of the cutlets in flour, egg, and breadcrumbs, placing them on the empty plate once they were ready to be cooked.

"You know, this is why I was a little scared of my TA position getting in the way of our relationship."

"What do you mean?" Annie asked, concern creeping into her voice.

"Because I _love_ spending time with you, no matter what we're doing," Rachel replied with a radiant smile.

Annie couldn't help but smile back as she dredged the last chicken cutlet in flour.

“I’ll start heating up the tomato sauce so it’ll be warm when we’re done frying the chicken,” Rachel said once she noticed that Annie was on the last one. Annie nodded, giving her permission to wash her hands and begin rooting around for the jar of sauce hiding in her cabinet. She also got out a small saucepan, placing it on one of her stove’s front burners. However, when Rachel went to light the burner, it refused to comply.

“Huh, that’s weird. This burner won’t turn on,” she remarked.

“Maybe it’s just a problem with that one?” Annie offered.

“Yeah, hopefully. Let me try another.” She moved over to the one next to it and tried to ignite it, but it similarly refused to light up.

“Want me to try them?”

“Be my guest.”

Annie quickly washed her hands before attempting the same thing with each of the four burners on the stovetop to no avail. She looked down at the appliance and pursed her lips, trying to formulate a plan.

“I should have known that things were going too well! Something _always_ goes wrong with every single one of our plans,” Rachel said with a laugh.

“You’re right! We can’t have a single thing go exactly as we planned it,” Annie grumbled, moving to rub her temples.

Rachel gave her a sympathetic smile. “It’s not an awful thing. It keeps life interesting, at least.”

“You’re right. And we always adapt,” Annie said, turning back to the stove with renewed confidence, “So…now, I guess we could look up things that might be going wrong with it and see what we could do to fix it?”

“We could,” Rachel said, “But…counterpoint, I’m incredibly hungry and don’t know if I have the patience for that.”

Annie chuckled, shaking her head. “That’s fair. I guess we could take everything over to my apartment? Since it’s only a few minutes away.”

“Would raw chicken travel well?”

“Well…worst case scenario, we have buttered noodles.”

\---

“You’re back early, Annie,” Abed remarked when he heard the front door open.

“Rachel’s stove broke, so we came back to have dinner here. Don’t let us interrupt your movie marathon,” Annie called back. Her and Rachel shuffled off to the kitchen and Annie got out two packets of ramen, the two of them having decided to leave the chicken in Rachel’s fridge for another day.

“Oh, I finished that. I’m onto my palette cleanser, which is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” he said.

“Oh my god, I love that movie!” Rachel wandered over to the living room and stood behind the couch, squinting at the TV to try and figure out which part Abed was at.

“Hey, babe? Do you want normal ramen or buttered noodles?” Annie called from the kitchen.

“Normal ramen sounds great!”

Abed shook his head. “Why…” he muttered.

Rachel stifled a laugh as she circled around the couch and took a seat next to him. “I respect your preference for buttered noodles, but I prefer something with a little more flavor.”

“I can respect that as well.”

The pair fell silent as they got sucked into the movie, watching the antics of Scott and his band play out as Annie finished preparing her and Rachel’s ramen. It wasn’t long before she joined the two of them in the living room with two bowls in hand. She handed one off to Rachel, who scooted over on the couch to make room for Annie.

“Thanks, babe. You’re actually the best,” she said.

Annie twirled a lock of hair around one of her fingers. “Aw, I know,” she replied sarcastically. Rachel rolled her eyes in response, smiling as she dug into her ramen.

Annie smiled back before beginning to slurp up her noodles as well, simultaneously turning her attention towards the movie. A blonde woman wearing a black minidress was getting up onto some kind of stage, stepping up to the microphone as the crowd was going wild.

“Ooo, who’s that? She’s pretty,” she asked, pointing at the screen.

“That’s Envy Adams, one of Scott’s exes and lead singer of the band Clash at Demonhead,” Abed explained. For a moment, he turned his attention away from the TV and towards Rachel. “You kind of look like her, you know.”

Annie swiveled to look at Rachel as well, her gaze bouncing back and forth between her and the TV. “You do! You two look almost identical.”

“I mean…” Rachel paused to consider their observation. “I guess that if I had longer hair and bangs and dressed like the lead singer of an early 2000’s punk-pop band, we might look kind of similar.”

“I think that’s too many qualifiers,” Annie said with a laugh, “but, you know…maybe you could try dressing like her sometime.”

Rachel turned to face her girlfriend, appearing to be intrigued by her proposition. “Maybe I could. Any particular reason you want me to?”

Annie’s face flushed. “Well, I-”

“Shh. Clash at Demonhead’s song is starting, you don’t want to miss this,” Abed interjected.

Rachel gave Annie a sideways smirk before turning back to the TV. However, Annie didn’t immediately turn back with her. There was something special about seeing her girlfriend and her roommate sitting next to each other on her living room couch, fully engrossed in a movie and eating noodles together.

 _“Home,”_ Annie decided, _“That’s what special, the comfort that Rachel was talking about earlier. I think this comfort feels like home.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I love these two very much and I'm happy to have gotten inspiration for another installment for this series!! (also, for those who don't know, Envy Adams is also played by Brie Larson. yes I'm hilarious.)
> 
> please leave any thoughts/opinions/etc. in the comments down below!! hope you all are doing well and staying safe. <3


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